Office of President warns on procurement corruption

HARARE,– The Office of the President and Cabinet (OPC) has warned government employees in charge of procurement to avoid being used by politicians to engage in corrupt deals.

“You will receive a lot of pressure from not only service providers, but also from politicians trying to influence how you make decisions and if you are professional enough, you should be able to weather the storm,” deputy chief secretary to the President and Cabinet Ray Ndhlukula said on Monday.

“Remember if you succumb, when you go to Chikurubi (Maximum Security Prison), you will all by yourself. Remember how politicians are; they influence you to make a decision but when you stand before the public accounts committee or before the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) and you cannot answer, they will tell you I was never there. And you will end up in Chikurubi all by yourself. So please be careful.”

Ndhlukula was speaking at a meeting to to discuss the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act.

The new act, provides for the decentralisation of procurement activities to ministries, departments and agencies as opposed to before when all purchases were done by the now defunct State Procurement Board (SPB).

“There is the other side of me that needs to be realistic and say there will be one or two rogue elements that will spoil the apple, we do want that. One or two will stray and we will be reading about them in the newspapers having been sent to Chikurubi (prison). But I hope that we do not get there,” said Ndhlukula.

The new Act also provides for the adoption of electronic procurement. – Source